Riverfest 2008
Design Charette
11.7.07
11:30-1:30pm
Ecotrust Conference Center
Portland, OR
Participants: see attached contact list
Overall Summary:
About 40 people gathered to generate ideas about how best to design and sponsor a citywide event to celebrate the Willamette River.
A number of participants shared their reasons for coming to the meeting, including: exploring opportunities to partner on future river events; following up on past inspirations for similar events; increasing connections between residents and the river; offering a new venue for hands-on experience in restoring the environment; and, re-visioning the Willamette as a new form of center stage for Portland.
Participants broke into seven groups and enthusiastically brainstormed ideas regarding event duration, theme, and activities (see below).
All participants were invited to become part of the group steering Riverfest development and/or take part in subgroups on specific topics (e.g., education; art; transportation; funding). Participants will be kept informed of event planning progress, and each will receive the contact information of everyone attending the meeting.
• Introductions & Reasons for being at meeting:
• Bridge Paddle – Joanna
• Couple dragon boats – same weekend so why not collaborate and bring people in from other regions
• Boat parade idea, trying to collaborate with Rose Fest but not quite made it happen.
• Daughters of Neptune, giving away life vests and promoting water safety.
• Not just have the river perception be negative, restoration project
• Reconnecting people with basic human processes, connecting people with where water comes from and what happens after they’ve touched it,
• Elevating the reputation of the Willamette.
• Promote sustainability and reduce environmental impact of production –green event company
• Showcase the river and all the RR themes - Michael
o Front porch
o Clean river
o Vibrant neighborhoods
o Working harbor
• Outdoor concert and education at other venues
o Concert by subscription at Meryweather building platform at river
• Great opp for looking at “front porch” and taking the theater out to the water
• Southwaterfront connection, connect to OHSU and residents to bring the river home
• Opportunity for env stewardship on the river
Overall early comments:
• Scan of what is already available before we create something new? We might gather that info into one place…
• Reach out to non-typical audiences
• Music Fest NW, TBA Festival
• Theme: collaboration is a good goal, bring multiple uses together
• Amplify the dramatic possibilities of the river, highlight partnerships, Salmonpeople
• Boat vehicle, engage local artists to create a craft out of industrial materials
• Sea wall as a great canvas, get people out on the water to view it
• Make the river personal to that there is incentive to really clean it up.
• “Swimming against the current” event
Post Break-out Thoughts on Riverfest:
Venue:
Thinking ranged from having a central city focus (involving both east- and west-sides) to a decentralized approach with multiple venues up and down the river. In either case, tours will play a key role in people’s enjoyment and education.
Duration:
There seemed to be agreement on the notion of a multi-day (Friday evening to Saturday night or Sunday morning), with some thought to pre- or post-event field trip activities by school kids.
Theme and Activities:
• involve school kids (and others) by featuring river poems (perhaps read by Oregon’s poet laureate) and/or river readings, possibly augmented with coupons for local bookstore discounts.
• organize river clean up by kids and/or families.
• Use a passport system to encourage full participation (get passport stamped for each completed activity, [e.g., clean up; rowing; safety booth] with a full passport entitling bearer to an activity discount)
• have multiple tours (jet boat, PT boat, Oregon Maritime Museum, Ross Isand; by boat, bike, foot).
• close lane on bridge(s) to serve as connector between east-west venues and provide unsurpassed viewing platform for river activities.
• release a seasonal Riverfest ale
• hold an evening gala as Riverfest fundraiser
• have a sea-plane fly-in.
• consider a big concert as a kick-off.
• hold a river-song-writing contest
• use barges as floating music platforms or as an art canvas (just as Burning Man has art cars, Riverfest could have art boats).
• Display art, or show movies, on seawall.
• consider repeat of Swim Against the Current race from Columbia up Willamette to Riverplace.
• build a human bridge, choreograph aerial ballet.
• feature expert lecturers on river topics with enough star-power to mesmerize an audience for a long time.
• have a Willamette dunk tank.
• hold a progressive performance party linked and integrated by water- and other transportation.
• target participation by new people who’ve never had much to do with the river before.
• pre-promote event, perhaps like Cirque du Soleil by having a tent go up a week in advance to provoke curiosity on part of public.
• Provide lots of historical information (bridges, river, city) and on other cultures’ experience with rivers
• Involve tribes
• consider a drive-in theater for boats with a seawall premier of some film
• have many scheduled events, allowing people to move from one to another to select the experience most interesting to them.
• consider hosting a kinetic sculpture competition.
• 3 key Riverfest elements: get people on/in water; education; art
• One valuable venue might be a beach area be roped off for swimming (with lifeguard services)
• Consider another illuminata for a night activity.
• Arrange for a huge Riverfest water slide.
• Riverfest may offer another opportunity for a trial-run of a water taxi system.
• With its water transportation emphasis, Riverfest might become part of a car-free (hour, ½ day, day).
• Riverfest should showcase sustainable products, including local healthy food and drink, and perhaps be designed with carbon neutrality in mind.
• Riverfest should leave a tangible legacy (beyond a fondly recalled experience), for example: a permanent art installation; a restored environmental area; a service (like a water taxi).
• Riverfest needs to somehow tie into Portland’s unique identity and be somehow wonderfully quirky.
• Riverfest should have a broad enough appeal to bring in people from across the region.
Event Plan Summaries by Group
• Group 1
o Children and school tie in – reading of poets, summer reading program through library, river books, discounts from powells
o School clean up time might be before school starts, event takes place right after school starts which is hard, but teach tie in and/or getting info out to kids for participation
o Barge entertatinment in river
o Passport idea – stamp for different types of activities, maybe lead to reduced entry fee for entertainment.
o Tours of different areas – getting people on boats, jetboats, crew, water taxi, kayaks, canoes, industrial tour for container ships, maritime museum, WWI boat being restored in North Portland.
o Ross Island tie in, clean up, heron watching
o Catherdral park as access point for boat tours, swimming
• Group 2
o 2 day event, Friday too Sunday 24 hours
o goal for # of people actually on the river, stamp or passport or something like that to measure goal
o Art going on, people from the bridges come down being drawn in
o Lots of music and food and drink
o Seasonal riverfest ale
o Bridge education history
o Gala – fundrasing event to support he actual festival and partners
o Sea planes
o OPB special in invasive plants and animals, tie into that production somehow
• Group 3
o Technical ideas
o Concert as kickoff
o 3 day event, when is the highlight concert
o song writing contest for river related content
▪ radio stations
o Site specific performance, arial ballet and human bridge, concert on a barge
o Performance party that links different events together, sequential
o Different events hosted in a week long format
o Expert lectures that really hold people for a full hour
o Dunk tank
o Storycorps idea – legacy but not just a weekend bash but something that has longevity
o Combine high entertainment value with family/ quiet time as well
o Work-trade idea for discount for concert
• Group 4
o Get new people out with different interests
o Concerns about being too diffuse, get central but with tours that take you somewhere and bring you back.
o What will get people out of the house?
▪ Pre-event display/ installation that brings people down, suspense
▪ Entertainment event that keeps people there afterwards
▪ History of the river and other cultures, our river as a system and tied to global rivers
▪ Upstream and upland areas, not just portland
o OMSI and something specific to the river
o Barge art
o Indigenous involvement
• Group 5
o Boat in instead of drive in. Premier that you can only see on the water
o Decentralize the festival, st johsn and ross island
o Boating safety and water safety
• Group 6
o 2 days, Friday evening to Sunday morning, start with concert and end with service?
o Keep the location in portland center, pushing for east side (education and water) and west side (entertainment)
o Tours (walking, biking, boating) to get from one side to the other, closing one lane of a bridge for walking traffic
o Port as part of the tour
o Saturday activities
▪ Kinetec sculpture race
▪ Dragon boating
▪ Happen every 2 or 3 hours so people have a couple opportunities to see it, continuous throughout the day
• Group 7
o Neighborhood schools as a way to bring kids in that then bring in parents, organic audience involvement
o Themes
▪ Art
▪ Education
▪ Get people on the water
o Passive transport on a craft
o Swimming areas
o Water taxi, car free day, force people to deal with the centrality of the river
o Miscellaneous thoughts:
o Parters and vendors need to also reflect the sustainability of the event
o What about art that gets created out of the event, highlighting things that get left behind
o Divers that pull something up and make something out of the trash.
o Huge water slide off barge
o Quirky quality to it, a keep portland weird element, a this wouldn’t happen anywhere else sort of component
o Trying to target people from outside of portland, thinking about that in terms of audience and not excluding anyone.
o Next Steps:
• Event element subgroups need to form
o Education
o Entertainment
o Recreation
o Arts
o Transporation
o Logistics
o Development / Fundraising
• Charette Participants added to update email listserve
• Charette notes and contact list sent to all participants
• Charette Participants agreed to be called upon for special projects/advice/participation as appropriate